The two surviving members of one of the world’s greatest bands reunited on stage on Thursday in a concert that also paid emotional tribute to their dead comrades.
The former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr performed in front of 20,000 fans at the O2 Arena in London on the last night of McCartney’s Get Back tour. The octogenarians belted out Helter Skelter and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band before the Beatles drummer left, adding: “I’m off now, I’ve had a great night and I love you all.”
McCartney was also joined on stage by the Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood – a mere 77 years old – for the song Get Back, during which McCartney played his original Hofner 500/1 bass for the first time in 50 years. The guitar was returned earlier this year after being stolen in 1972.
McCartney’s concert featured a virtual duet with John Lennon, who was murdered in New York in 1980. Footage of Lennon performing I’ve Got a Feeling during the Beatles’ rooftop concert at Apple Corps’ headquarters in London accompanied McCartney’s live rendition on stage.
Footage of George Harrison, who died in 2001, and of all four Beatles in their heyday was screened throughout the concert.
Starr and McCartney have reunited a number of times since the Beatles broke up, including on McCartney’s 2018-19 Freshen Up tour, and at Starr’s 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Thursday’s performance at the O2 was the last date in McCartney’s Get Back tour, which began in October and has included dates in Paris, Madrid and São Paulo. He played two concerts in Manchester and two in London.
His two and a half hour set opened with A Hard Day’s Night and included hits from a career that has spanned more than 60 years.
At the start of the concert, McCartney told the crowd: “Oh London, this is the last night of our current tour, we’ve been around South America and all over the place. So it’s great to be back and we’re going to have some fun tonight.”
Later in the set, he played a snippet of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Foxy Lady and took to a second, elevating stage to perform the Beatles’ Blackbird and solo track Here Today.
After playing the Hendrix snippet, McCartney said: “I was lucky enough to know him a bit in the 60s and he was a great guy, a great guitar player but a very humble person.”
He also played In Spite of All the Danger by the Quarrymen (McCartney’s first band, which he played in alongside Lennon and Harrison), before performing what is thought will be the Beatles’ last single, 2023’s Now and Then.
Other set highlights included Wings’ Band on the Run and the 1972 James Bond theme Live and Let Die, accompanied by fireworks and pyrotechnics. McCartney was joined on stage by a children’s choir for his festive hit Wonderful Christmastime.
He also played My Valentine, which he wrote for his wife, Nancy Shevell, who he married in 2011. McCartney was previously married to Linda Eastman, who died of breast cancer in 1998, and Heather Mills, from whom he divorced in 2008 with a £24m settlement.
